OT: USPTO Patent Madness - Microsoft patents ToDo lists embedded in source code
From CNet:
"The patented technology essentially integrates certain comments left in the source code of an application under development with an accompanying checklist. Leave a "TODO" comment in the source code, and an authoring application automatically creates an item in the task list. Check an item off on the task list, and the corresponding source code comment is changed."
http://news.com.com/2102-1008_3-5228693.html?tag=st.util.print
The text of the patent is here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6,748,582
With all the prior art out there, I can't believe MS received a patent for this.
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Woops, didn't realize this was already posted.
as an aside, I just saw yesterday they got a patent on the mouse click just accepted
Thibaut wrote:
> as an aside, I just saw yesterday they got a patent on the mouse
click just accepted
How long till they get one on handshakes, and their many implementations
(African, Masonic, ...)?
I guess their lawyers would say that this would actually be good for the
planet: poor people, who can't afford to pay for handshakes wouldn't
either pay for, nor use soap. As MSFT lost the battle against viruses,
they moved the battleground to germs.
Thanks, Bill - I'll be back - Gates.
Alain
Unbelievable. What does this mean for all the other companies that have been using this for years such as JetBrains??
and for all the individuals that used it before without even dreaming of this small habit being patentable !
Hello Thibaut,
T> as an aside, I just saw yesterday they got a patent on the mouse
T> click just accepted
Apparently this is not what you may think:
http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/EntryViewPage.aspx?guid=78b6c82d-b9e7-4027-b19b-bbd71df15da6
--
Dmitry Skavish
JetBrains, Inc. / "Develop with pleasure!"
http://www.jetbrains.com
-- Posted by JetBrains OmniaMea
Thx for pointing me to the pattern text, I had only read a translated () abstract , obviously deformed.
However, I still find it inacceptable to see such patents accepted, but this may be my french nature ;)
Even if Microsoft is granted the pattent, he can't enforce it over someone who implements something similar because there is previous art. Everyone can prove that IDEA has this feature from long ago, and if Eclipse have it (which I don't know, but I know that it can populate the Task list automatically with other stuff) then this pattent is pretty much useless.
On 10-06-2004 22:15, Rafael Alvarez wrote:
Note that the patent was filed on March 6, 2000. That's from before
Eclipse existed. I don't know if IDEA was around then, but I certainly
wasn't using it yet.
Bas
I'm pretty sure Delphi had a code based task list before March 6, 2000.
N.
Bas Leijdekkers wrote:
>> Even if Microsoft is granted the pattent, he can't enforce it over
>> someone who implements something similar because there is previous
>> art. Everyone can prove that IDEA has this feature from long ago, and
>> if Eclipse have it (which I don't know, but I know that it can
>> populate the Task list automatically with other stuff) then this
>> pattent is pretty much useless.